Christina Warren

Christina Warren: Senior Tech Analyst at Mashable. Lover of film, media and technology. I have opinions.

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Liberal Arts Are Still Alive and Well At Apple

While I’m waiting for OS X Mavericks to download on this machine (I’m not sure I’m doing a clean install this time, even if I did write and test a guide to do just that), I figured I’d respond to Ben Thompson’s critique of Apple’s iPad Air event from Tuesday.

Commenting on the new iPad Air ad, Thompson writes:

There are no stories, and there are no humans. It’s clever yet abstract, remarking upon what has happened, without a vision for what is now possible. That’s the thing about stories: the best storytellers – like Jobs – are so compelling because they have vision. They see what we don’t see, and they can’t be more excited to tell us about just that.

And then he concludes:

Does Apple still have vision? Yesterday’s presentation did not, and I wonder just how costly last year’s departure might have been.

To this I have just one response. It’s the best Apple commercial in years –...

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Ghost - A WordPress I’d Love to Use

John O'Nolan has written his fictional, perfect idea for a writing-specific WordPress fork.

It’s an idea I can fully, 1000% support. As much as I like Svbtle (ignore my lack of updates, if you saw my calendar you’d not write on your personal blog either), something must be said for owning and controlling your own domain.

In a lot of ways, Ghost – which doesn’t yet exist, but I hope will – reminds me of Chyrp, which was originally going to be like a self-hosted Tumblr. The project is still around but it hasn’t amounted to anything.

Anyway, I love the idea of a small, lean, blogging/writing engine. It’s great that WordPress has finally become a viable CMS (although I’ll still take issue with putting it in the same league as systems like Drupal or Django, especially if you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of blog entries and complex taxonomies), but as a result, the focus has...

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The Newest Print Magazine Ad Format: A Real Smartphone

The "ad" up close

The CW put an innovative ad inside this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. Interspersed inside the pages, there is a small video screen that plays some video clips of new shows and then loads a live, real-time Twitter feed from the network.

The overall experience kind of sucks, and I think most of us viewed it as an exercise to get press coverage rather than a real ROI opportunity – but it’s still neat to see tech like this.

After getting our copy of the ad, we were curious about what was powering the screen. I was guessing it was s small 2G or 3G radio and an embedded system that was just loading a single Twitter stream.

It turns out, there is a full-blown Android smartphone powering the ad. We took ours apart see all the details here and were shocked to find the phone.

At first, I was convinced it was a BlackBerry they hacked to run some custom software. Then, after pressing...

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Static

I have so much stuff to write here – it isn’t even funny. I have at least 10 partial posts, but I’m bad at time management. Just ask my boss. Or my husband.

Anyway, with VoodooPad 5.1 out, I figured I’d write a little something about Static, which is basically Gus’s version of Jekyll and similar in function to Svbtle.

As a big fan of VoodooPad, and basically Flying Meat in general, I’m going to give it a shot to see if the collaborative aspects would be useful for work. To me, that would be the ideal. Static generated blogs are great as no-cruft ways to present information, but most fall apart with multi-user setups. This could change that, while also offering an interface, via VoodooPad, that while still just for nerds – would at least be easier to explain to someone than Jekyll.

We’ll see. I have a much longer post about the trends in personal publishing in the worlds. It should...

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Screw Upgrades: The New MacBook Pro IS the Future

Apple released a new MacBook Pro this week and I want one. Badly. More than I have wanted any gadget or computing device in quite some time.

The machine is pricey. With AppleCare, tax, an upgrade to 16GB of memory and a few accessories, it’s easily over $3,000 for the base model. That’s even more expensive than my 2009 27" iMac, even though spec-wise, it’s not that much of a bump. Still, I want one. Badly.

As my colleague Pete Pachal described the machine in his excellent review, this really is computing in the future, today. I’ve only spent a small amount of time with our test unit – but in that time, I’m already convinced that this is the most significant Mac product update Apple has released in at least five years.

Thin AND Powerful

On Twitter, @JaceFuse said something that got to the heart of why I’m so bullish about the new MacBook Pro:

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Christina Tries Airtime

Christina and Sean Airtiming

And this is what happens.

I have to say, going into Airtime, I wasn’t that keen on the service. It’s Chatroulette, what’s the big deal.

So I fire up the service today and login and I see this familiar looking guy staring back. I don’t want to be presumptuous and ask the guy if he’s Sean Parker – after all, he look like that everyguy you see all over this city – but my thoughts are confirmed a few minutes later when he adds me as his friend, I confirm and find out that yes, I’m sharing videos with one of the founders of the service.

Mind. Blown.

Using the video sharing feature, I shared a clip from The Social Network featuring the faux-Sean Parker, AKA Justin Timberlake. Sean was a good sport about it – even though I’m sure he hates it when people bring the movie up to him.

All in all, not a bad way to start the afternoon.

Incidentally – I see real viral potential with...

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Movie Marketing Circa 1982

This is so epic. So. So Epic.

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Listening to the Web

One of my most favorite web services is Instapaper. For the last four years, it’s a service I have turned to time and time again, to reference, discover and save longform articles.

After moving to New York last year, the service went from being something I interacted with a few times during the week to being a daily use tool. Why? Subway rides. I love reading and discovering great content while traveling from Brooklyn to NYC. It’s part of my morning or evening routine.

When Marco introduced subscriptions, I eagerly paid up, just to support the service and its creator. It’s something I truly love.

Here’s the problem – sometimes I’m not in a position to read my articles. Maybe I’ve got to stand up the whole ride to NYC (or back to Brooklyn) and can’t have my phone out enough to consistently read. Maybe I’m walking the half a mile between my apartment and the subway station and I have to...

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Married

Mr. and Mrs. Warren-Robertson

So I have tons and tons of things I’ve been meaning to write, however, it has all been on the back burner (and rightfully so) because of something MUCH more important.

I got married!!

I am now legally Christina Warren-Robertson, though I will remain Christina Warren professionally.

I couldn’t be happier to spend my life with Grant, my soulmate, best friend and husband.

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“Introducing David”


This faux-ad for Prometheus from Fox is a work of pure brilliance. The entire campaign, which I give an overview of here is extremely well constructed and is an example of a studio and ad agency understanding the audience for a film.

Tremendous work. I’m beyond proud that Mashable was able to be the partner premiere partner for this clip and look forward to seeing the film on June 8.

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